Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is typically the planning of how business resources (e.g., inventory, employees, customers, etc.) are acquired and flow through the business process associated with each resource. Frequently, ERP includes the capture, storage and analysis of information relating to the tracked resources. In various cases ERP may be divided into sub-categories or systems pertaining to financials, human capital management, materials management, customer relationship management, sales & distribution, and production planning, corporate services, and/or general operations management. In general, a well executed ERP system enhances productivity and provides insight to a business. Often an ERP customer may wish to keep their ERP data secret from their competitors and more generally the world.
Customer relationship management (CRM) is typically the practice of intelligently finding, marketing to, selling to, and servicing customers. Frequently, CRM includes the capture, storage, and analysis of information relating to customers, vendors, partners, and/or internal systems. Often a customer may wish to keep their customer relationship management data secret from their competitors and more generally the world.
Other typical business management activities may include, for example, Supplier Relationship Management (SRM), Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), Supply Chain Management (SCM), etc.
Often synthesizing information from multiple systems, in the context of ERP or CRM applications or in other settings, includes performing or executing multiple jobs on a distributed network of computing systems. The plurality of jobs or tasks may be arranged in a workflow or session that dictates, for example, the order and precedence of the jobs or tasks.